“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that.”
The year is 2022 and everything and everyone is racist. Well, that is if you change the definition of the word “racist” to mean the opposite of what everyone understands it to mean. This article aims to outline the very straightforward and obvious manner in which race grifters operate to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone hoping to live together in a peaceful, prosperous society while explaining that racism, like slavery, has always been anti-American.
The current most popular strategy being employed to cast American as inherently racist is wielding the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to attack anyone who doesn’t actively support you and give you money as racist. You don’t give money to BLM? Racist. You didn’t buy Robin DeAngelo’s book White Fragility? Racist. You say that you’re not a racist? RACIST! Easy. People point this out? Explain how your definition of racism makes your allegations technically true. If anyone makes the astute observation that this is Orwellian manipulation of language predicated on controlling conversation to attain power and wealth you have some options. You can play the polite academic and attribute this misunderstanding to their white (or brown if they’re not white) privilege. If you’re an activist on social media foaming at the mouth to virtue signal to your tribe, you say SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKING RACIST!
Of course, we have a useful definition of racism that we can’t abandon if we don’t want to be manipulated by bad faith actors that only seek power, money, and control. The definition of racism from our good friends at wikipedia (emphasis mine) is such:
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.
Based on this definition, it is impossible for an ideological American to be racist. Is that too bold? Not by a long shot. Americans are ideologically individualists. They are not collectivists. To view the world in terms of groups, especially with respect to who does (and does not) deserve natural rights and how that there should be differences between how groups are treated under the law, is inherently anti-American. Moreover, the reference to superiority of a given group speaks to a belief in objective value. This misconception over the nature of value seems to be an inherent bias/feature of human psychology. It is present in the works of Adam Smith, who then influenced Ricardo, who then influenced Karl Marx with his labor theory of value. This misconception of value as an objective, as opposed to subjective feature of reality tends to go hand-in-hand with the collectivist (and therefore intrinsically anti-American) mindset. Luckily Carl Menger corrected this misunderstanding all the way back in 1871. The same way Smith led to Marx, Menger led to Ludwig von Mises who warned us about a common rhetorical strategy to be employed by race grifters all the way back in the 1940s. Mises called this epistemologically invalid position “race polylogism”. Why do I bring this up? Because I just wanted you to know that when people dismiss arguments of people based on their skin color as the product of “white privilege”, they are engaging in race polylogism. That’s right, Mises rhetorically neutralized this shit several decades before it even started. But enough economic history, let’s transition to talking about the sordid modus operandi of race grifters.
Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Robin DeAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, Nick Fuentes, Andrew Torba, and David Duke. These are all quintessential examples of race grifters.1 Each of these individuals share a passion for making money by the most expedient possible means. Unfortunately for society, they have all found that inflaming racial animosity and pandering to racists to be their own personal most expedient means of self-enrichment. How can you tell? It’s actually pretty easy. There are issues with division, and there are issues in society that disproportionately affect certain groups. You’ll notice that nothing any of these individuals advocates even attempts to provide tangible solutions to these problems. The “solution” is always to give the grifter more money. This can be in the form of donations, paying for speaking engagements, or paying for books or proprietary services. The most sinister impact that these grifters have is that they malign well intentioned individuals on both sides of the political aisle that hold American values, but just have different beliefs about what policies might be best for society. Leftists might want more central planning to ensure equal opportunity while people on the right might advocate for equality before the law without planning as attempts to “level the playing field” require violating natural rights. There are productive discussion that could happen in this space about what works to make the world a better place. Race grifters can’t allow this. They thrive on painting their political enemies as racists who want to destroy America. This satisfies mediocre minds that luxuriate in the delusion that anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs is necessarily stupid and/or evil. With respect to beliefs, it is difficult to tell if any of these named individuals are truly racist, or if they’ll just say whatever they have to in order to keep this straightforward and lucrative grift of scapegoating going. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. They’re all anti-Americans, and must be regarded as such if we’re to fully appreciate the truth, namely, that America isn’t racist and it never has been.
Although anti-American ideologues have consistently tried to paint America as inherently racist due to associations with slavery (the 1619 project being a prominent example), this global institution was never compatible with American ideals. One could argue that it wasn’t even legal as the great American Lysander Spooner did in his book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery initially published in 1845. Considering that this work makes the “scholarship” of 1619 contributors look like it might as well have been written on construction paper in crayon for a kindergarten class assignment, I agree with Spooner.
Since even people that are admirable in a lot of ways, like Dave Chapelle, love to point out that the founding fathers were all racist slave holders, let’s take a look at the words of one Patrick Henry about his ownership of slaves in a letter he wrote to Robert Pleasants:
Would any one believe that I am Master of Slaves of my own purchase! I am drawn along by ye. general inconvenience of living without them, I will not, I cannot justify it.
So Henry knew it was immoral, but he did it anyway out of convenience. You might be tempted to condemn him for this, but how many of us have clean hands with respect to supporting anti-American moral repugnance? I know I don’t. I buy goods manufactured in China routinely. One time, after learning about what the CCP does to political dissidents (such as harvesting their organs while they are still alive so as to keep them “fresh”) I tried to boycott goods manufactured in China (all of which allow the CCP to profit). I found that I couldn’t tolerate the inconvenience. Does that make me complicit? Does that make me any less of an American? Maybe, and like Patrick Henry I will not attempt to justify it. What I will say is that globalism and the dollar’s status as the world reserve currency2 sets up incentives to make us all complicit in this evil, and so opposing these policies is the American thing to do. Even if the American consumer might seem to benefit from cheap Chinese goods, the fact that the CCP participates in a system whereby they inflate their currency to trade paper USD for real goods robs their own citizens of the fruits of their labors and guts the ability of U.S. manufacturing to compete. The American middle class loses an opportunity to provide for themselves and their families with productive jobs, and the Chinese worker is robbed of purchasing power by their own government. This collusion between anti-American western and Chinese elites must be condemned by Americans, but I will admit I lack the discipline to self-enforce a boycott to usher in the end of this evil system.
That might all seem like a digression, but I’m trying to make the point that I’ll close with. Slavery and the racist justifications for it were anti-American since the inception of America as an idea. The modern day parallel is managerial elites that jump at the chance to do business with the CCP thereby impoverishing the American middle class and preventing upward mobility of the Chinese working class alike. The western elites (think people like Zuckerburg, Lebron, and Palihaptiya) are the slave holders, and the CCP represents the African tribes that sold their people off to European slave traders. I won’t condemn anyone who does business with the CCP as anti-American, just as I won’t condemn the founding fathers. What I will say, is that attempts to justify the current economic relationship and subjugation of the Chinese people at the hands of the CCP is just as anti-American as any attempts to justify the anti-American practice of slavery. I’ll close on another thought to drive this point home. I don’t think the founding fathers were the “truest” Americans. They were the elite, and they centralized government at the constitutional convention to the greatest extent that they could get away with. The truest Americans are those individuals that didn’t own slaves that put pressure on these elites to include a bill of rights in the constitution. The same bill of rights that assure us that slavery was always anti-American in spite of the fact that our elites then, as now, can only ever hope to speak for the truly great Americans that constitute a silent majority in the United States. This diverse array patriots have little interest in politics and controlling others. It is these individuals who would prefer to live and let live that constitute the core of what makes America great. Trying to paint these individuals as racist, and America as inherently racist is a bad faith effort supported by the managerial elite to politically disenfranchise these noble individuals. Race grifters on the political right and left benefit from subverting this true narrative that helps to elucidate the the real political divide in America, that between Americans and anti-Americans.
Robert Barnes had a great rant about Fuentes and Torba on one of his “bourbon with Barnes” livestreams at vivabarneslaw.locals.com that was prompted by Torba attacking Rumble for their terms of service. His points about how people like Fuentes and Torba discredit principled populist positions and concerns for America are informative and well founded IMO.
For a great outline of how the petrodollar system was established, see this 4 part series:
You know, having the discipline to boycott goods produced in China, whose government is tragically engaged in genocide, is something I have struggled with for two main reasons. The first is price - the cost disparity between USA made goods and those manufactured abroad is often more steep than I can realistically afford - that or maybe I just suffer from sticker shock because I'm so accustomed to the standard prices associated with products made overseas (I was about to call these "cheaply" made goods, but reworded my sentence as a pang of guilt hit me thinking of how the cost of production here is actually quite high as everyday people "pay" to produce these goods with a reduction in their standard of living, rights, etc., but I suppose trying to account for this here will only overly complicate what I'd like to ask). Convenience is something I actually lump in with price. If it is inconvenient to get, the price is higher than I'm willing to pay, and yes, sometimes this amounts to opportunity cost rather than a tangible monetary increase. The second reason I struggle to avoid products made in countries that are infected with human rights violators in seats of power is that I wonder if in so doing, I might contribute to a widespread severance of resources that do trickle down to some of the Chinese citizens who need them, people who are guilty of nothing more than being born in a country where the CCP has spread its influence like metastatic cancer, people who I probably share a great deal with. There are a few other issues keeping me from boycotting more effectively, such as the very annoying fact that many goods are "made in the USA from foreign and domestic materials" meaning the raw materials are still often not sourced in a country, or countries, that are even pretending to be ethically oriented. But, that's all besides the point...
What I'd like to know is how a critical mass of people spending their money in accordance with their principles can be reached if so many of us who recognize the problem are still practically inextricably bound to it? What was the tipping point that finally led to the abolishment of anti-American slavery? Can I still call myself an American if I am lucidly engaged with something as anti-American as propping up a tyrannical political party with every amazon purchase I make?
Race Grifters: "The only way to ensure you are not racist is to buy my product."